Sea lions, healthier and heavier, returned to ocean

Grace, a sea lion who has been in rehabilitation at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center since last February, gets released back into the ocean as volunteers and supporters watch in Laguna Beach.EUGENE GARCIA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

What does a healthy sea lion look like?

Depending on the species, a healthy female adult sea lion weighs 110 to 600 pounds and is 4 to 9 feet long; while a healthy adult male sea lion weighs 440 to 2,200 pounds and is 6.5 to 11 feet long. At birth, sea lions typically weigh 13 to 48 pounds and are 2 to 3 feet long. Sea lions live an average of 15 to 30 years and eat a variety of food including fish, squid, crabs and krill.

Sources: San Diego Zoo, Pacific Marine Mammal Center

LAGUNA BEACH – Five months after they were found on a beach, severely malnourished, Grace and Evanora went home Sunday, healthier and plumper and excited to be back in the Pacific Ocean.

The two sea lion pups were rescued from San Clemente earlier this year along with more than 1,000 other starving sea lions found along the Southern California coast. Pacific Marine Mammal Center – which cares for stranded animals from Seal Beach to San Onofre – released the two from their care at Crescent Bay Beach.

Grace was rescued in February at 26 pounds, less than half the healthy weight for a pup her age. On Sunday morning, weighing a robust 79 pounds, she raced eagerly toward the shore. Evanora, who weighed 22 pounds when she was rescued in March, followed seconds later, easing her 80-pound frame into the water.

Melissa Sciacca, the center's director of development, said Grace and Evanora's cases were typical of hundreds of sea lion pups the center received this spring. The center, located in Laguna Beach, has released more than 120 sea lions back into the ocean since the height of the crisis in March.

In late March, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service declared the string of sea lion strandings between Mexico and Santa Barbara an "unusual mortality event."

Sea lion pups were found on Southern California beaches from Santa Barbara to San Diego from January until mid-May. All the sea lions presented similar symptoms, including severe dehydration and starvation.

Keith Matassa, executive director of the center, said many of the adolescent sea lion pups the center rescued did not show signs of abnormal, infectious diseases.

"We had animals that were coming in at 15 to 20 pounds," Matassa said. "If they were healthy and in the wild, they should have been around 60 to 70 pounds."

According to the center's website, last year the center rescued 122 animals — 67 of them sea lions. So far this year, it has rescued more than 366 animals — 344 of which were sea lions.

A rescued sea lion's average stay this year was two to four months, Sciacca said.

"Starvation takes a long time" to treat, she said. "Their delicate systems go into shut-down mode."

Center volunteers fed the underweight pups marine mammal milk replacement and slowly built up their tolerance to fish. Michelle Hunter, the center's director of animal care, said they fed the sea lion pups fish slightly earlier than their mothers would have.

"We have our set protocols, but this year we saw a lot of them arriving in more of a critical condition," she said. "Some of them were cold and practically freezing to death."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that in the first three months of 2013, more than 900 malnourished sea lions have been rescued in the region, compared with 100 during the same time period last year. SeaWorld San Diego, Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, Santa Barbara Marine Mammal Center and Channel Islands Marine and Wildlife Institute near Santa Barbara also took in sea lions in spring.

In April, the federal agency looked into radiation from Japan's nuclear disaster as one of several possible causes of the sea lion stranding.

Matassa said Sunday an investigation into possible causes is continuing, and the results are very preliminary. However, he suspects the problem might have to do with the pups' food supply chain.

"There would have been more species affected if it were radiation," Matassa said. "We did not see adult sea lions, fish, birds, dolphins or whales."

He said the center has 57 animals still in treatment, which is closer to the number they housed at this time last year. The center's last rescue on July 20 was an adult sea lion that was underweight and had a wound on his neck and something wrong with his jaw, which "did not look like other animals we were getting in this whole time."

Sciacca said the center releases multiple sea lions every one to two weeks, normally at about 80 pounds — well above a healthy average weight — and with an identification tag in case a sea lion returns to shore.

Matassa said six of their rescued sea lions would be released this year with satellite tags to assist the center in identifying the cause of the mass stranding.

Related Links

Grace, a sea lion who has been in rehabilitation at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center since last February, gets released back into the ocean as volunteers and supporters watch in Laguna Beach. EUGENE GARCIA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Evanora, a sea lion who has been in rehabilitation at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center since last March, looks back after being released Sunday into the ocean in Laguna Beach. EUGENE GARCIA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Grace, a sea lion who has been in rehabilitation at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center since last February, gets released back into the ocean on Sunday as volunteers and supporters watch in Laguna Beach. EUGENE GARCIA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Evanora, a sea lion who has been in rehabilitation at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center since last March, gets released back into the ocean on Sunday as volunteers and supporters watch in Laguna Beach. EUGENE GARCIA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Supporters watch as Grace and Evanora, sea lions who have been in rehabilitation at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, get released Sunday back into the ocean in Laguna Beach. Both originally were found in San Clemente. EUGENE GARCIA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Supporters watch with joy as Grace and Evanora, sea lions who have been in rehabilitation at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, get released back into the ocean in Laguna Beach on Sunday. They were both originally found in San Clemente. EUGENE GARCIA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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